Trapped
by Siriusluver-le
Summary: Sometimes it takes force to make people work out their differences....E/O...Spoilers for 'Weak'. Better than the summary I promise!


**Trapped**

**A/N: This story is set after the episode 'Weak' and so it contains some spoilers. The beginning lines in the story are actually in the episode which ends with Olivia on the brink of tears in the courthouse. I saw the episode and it struck a chord in me and I couldn't stop thinking that that's not how it needed to have ended. So I wrote this little continuation to get our favorite couple back on track. I hope you enjoy! R&R please. **

"Is that what this is about? Some kind of inferiority complex?" Elliot asked bluntly.

"I know you're on the rebound and all but could you leave it out of work." Olivia growled.

Elliot simply stared at her.

It was a low blow and she knew it, but damned if it wasn't getting to her the way he kept siding with Rebecca Hendrix. She couldn't stand the way he looked at her, the way he took her side, and the way he wanted to include her in everything. It was just so damn irritating. She wanted to throw something or scream, but she couldn't so instead she just decided to prove the two of them wrong. Whirling on her heel she left to go talk to one of their victims again.

"What is this? Some kind of I told you so lecture?" Olivia asked staring down at the shorter woman in front of her.

"You can't save them all Olivia." Rebecca told her. With that she was gone.

Olivia couldn't help it, as soon as Rebecca left the tears welled up behind her eyes. She bit the corner of her lip in a vain attempt to keep them in. How could Miranda Cole have died? Hadn't she tried hard enough? Had she done something wrong? Unanswerable questions raced through her mind as she stood in the aisle of the slowly emptying courtroom trying not to cry. "Liv? Olivia?" She heard someone calling her name and looked up…straight into the arrestingly blue eyes of her partner.

Immediately, a measure of her anger returned. It was further aggravated by the fact that he had caught her on the verge of tears. "What do you want, Elliot?"  
"What's wrong, Olivia?"

"Go away." She snapped.

"Liv?" Elliot questioned, truly worried about her.

"Don't you have a hot date to go on?" She snarled, knowing that being low was the only way she could really get him to leave her alone. "I think she's waiting for you at the Bellevue Psych Ward. Her shift just ended."

"Olivia, don't do this." Elliot's voice was perilously close to begging.

"Just leave me alone, Stabler." She snapped, pushing past him.

Elliot watched her stalk past him and felt his heart wrench. He hadn't meant to hurt her. He hadn't even really realized that he was flirting with Rebecca until Olivia had pointed it out. Of course by then he'd been so angry at her for dragging that up that he'd only flirted more blatantly. A familiar voice interrupted his thoughts.

"You look like you could use some company." Fin said coming to stand beside Elliot.

Elliot looked over at his co-worker. "Yeah, probably."

"Wanna go get a drink and talk about it?" Fin asked.

"Yes to the drink but I'm not sure that I want to talk about it."

"A little alcohol will loosen you up." Fin promised.

Elliot just shrugged. "Let's go."

Half an hour found them seated at a table at a local bar, each with a beer in front of him. "So do you wanna talk?" Fin prompted.

Elliot took a drink and swallowed slowly.

"Is this about Liv?" Fin asked.

Elliot nodded slowly.

"And that psych doc that worked this case?"  
Elliot nodded again.

"Ah," Fin said. "Liv's jealous?"

"I can't see why she would be." Elliot admitted.

"Then you're really blind." Fin stated simply.

Elliot continued to look at him confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Can't you see that she's in love with you?" Fin asked, smirking as though he was looking at a really dumb pupil.

"She is?" Elliot asked. He was numb with shock. _How could I have missed this all this time?_

"Casey, Alex, Munch, and I all see it. Hell, I'm sure even Cragen can see it."

"God I hope not." Elliot said with a smile. "What should I do? After this she'll probably hate me."

"Go talk to her." Fin prompted.

"Tonight?" Elliot asked, feeling like a helpless teen all of a sudden.

"Yes. Right now." Fin told him. When Elliot just stared at him, Fin made a pushing motion with his hands. "Go, I'll cover the tab."

"You're the best, Fin." Elliot said, jumping up and grabbing his coat.

Elliot banged loudly on the door of her apartment a few minutes later. "Olivia, open up!"

Finally, the lock clicked back and the door was flung open. "Go away, Elliot!" Olivia practically shouted at him.

Elliot shook his head firmly. "Not going to happen."

"Oh yes it is." She insisted, swinging the door shut. For a moment it looked as though she'd succeeded, but at the last possible second Elliot's foot stopped the door's path. He threw the door open and stepped inside, causing Olivia to take a step back. She glared at him. "Don't you have a date?" She hissed in a last ditch effort to get him to leave.

"Who would I have a date with?" Elliot asked.

"Rebecca Hendrix!" Olivia pointed out.

"I have no attraction to her what-so-ever."

"Don't screw with me, Elliot!" She yelled. "I saw you with her! The way you sided with her all the time…it made me sick!"

'It had nothing to do with attraction, Liv! She had a viable theory on the case, I agreed with her, and your damn pride got hurt!" Elliot's anger was starting to boil.

"My pride?" Olivia asked, trying not to sound hurt. "What does my pride have to do with this?"

"Because you got jealous! You couldn't stand a little competition."

"Get out." Olivia said icily. "There's not enough room in here for you and your ego."

"Olivia-"

"OUT!!" She yelled.

Elliot looked at her eyes and was staggered by the pure unbridled fury burning there. Turning, he left.

Elliot had barely closed the door when Olivia broke down. She literally doubled over under the force of her sobs. She sat on her kitchen floor and simply sobbed. She cried for all the victims out there that she could never help; she cried for Miranda Cole; she cried for her own damaged childhood and her mother. But mostly she cried for her relationship with Elliot and the love she never thought he'd feel for her. An hour later her eyes were burning and she'd run out of tears to cry. She hugged her knees in the partially dark kitchen, staring at the walls.

In her mind she saw Elliot smiling that smile that she'd once thought was just for her. Only this time she was watching as he smiled at Rebecca Hendrix. Her heart wrenched and tore as she saw love reflected in his warm blue eyes.

Olivia started awake, still on the floor of her kitchen. Her phone was ringing somewhere above her. She rose stiffly and glanced around. Spotting the phone, she grabbed it from the counter and flipped it open. "Benson."

"Hey girl, it's Fin." The semi-cheery voice greeted her.

"Fin, it's 2:30 in the morning," Liv groaned. "This had better be important."

"Oh, it is." Fin assured her. "We got a case. The captain wants you down at the house."

Olivia sighed. "Give me a half an hour." She told him.

Exactly thirty minutes later, Olivia walked into the station house with a travel mug of coffee. "So what's up?" She asked Fin who was sitting at his desk.

"The evidence is laid out in interrogation room one." Fin said, standing up and leading the way.

Olivia followed along behind him curiously. They rarely laid evidence out in interrogation rooms. When they arrived she entered. Just as it registered that the room was totally dark, she heard the door snap shut behind her and the lock turn. "Fin?" She called, worry rising in her throat.

"Liv?" A voice questioned from behind her on the far side of the room.

That wasn't Fin's voice, but it was even more familiar. "Elliot?" She asked.

"That's me." The detective said wryly.

"Damn it!" Liv swore, unable to believe that she'd allowed herself to be locked in an interrogation room with Elliot Stabler at three in the morning. "Fin! What the hell is going on!" She shouted.

"I believe he said something about working out this 'thing' between us."

"What thing Elliot?!" Olivia yelled, slamming her travel mug down on the table in the room.

Unbeknownst to her, Elliot had moved from where he was standing in the far corner of the room and moved towards her. Experimentally he ran a finger down her exposed arm. She leapt in the air and moved away from him. "See?" He asked.

"See what?" She exclaimed. "You scared the hell out of me!"

"Okay. So that experiment failed. Shall we try again?"

Olivia hadn't realized that they were moving as they talked, he towards her and she away from him. She didn't realize it until her back touched the wall. As Elliot continued to move towards her she slid sideways and found herself trapped in a corner of the room. "Try what again?" She asked, hating that some of the venom had drained from her voice.

Elliot took another step closer, effectively trapping his partner in the corner. "This." He said, reaching out and stroking her arm again.

Olivia fought hard not to let her body respond in the way it wanted to. She stifled the shiver that wanted to race up her spine. As hard as she possibly could, she tried to meet his eyes with fury. She wanted to show him that he had no effect on her. She wanted him to feel the way she felt every time he looked at another woman.

Elliot's heart broke as he looked at the anger in her eyes. Had he really let their relationship sink so far? But he drew hope from the barely acknowledged shiver he'd seen her try to stop at his touch. Banking on the fact that it wasn't a shiver of disgust, he bent closer to her. At first he moved slowly, but as he drew closer to her his movements increased. In one fluid motion his arms surrounded her and his lips descended on hers. He tenderly stroked her short chestnut hair as his mouth massaged hers.

Olivia was shocked into standing utterly still when Elliot first kissed her. By the time she regained her motor skills, she couldn't have fought him if she'd wanted to. By the time her limbs would move again, her heart was already melting under his touch. The only motion she made was to wrap her own arms around him.

Elliot pulled back to look at Olivia when air became a necessity. He felt his heart fall as he noticed slow tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "Liv?" He asked, gently. Her watery eyes fixed on his. "Are you alright?"

That was all it took. Olivia felt the tears that she'd just barely been restraining wrench free from her grasp. She collapsed in Elliot's arms and sobbed. She was tired of fighting with him. She was tired of trying to deny that she felt something for him. "I-I j-just d-don't know w-what to d-do anymore." She sobbed.

"Stop denying this," Elliot suggested.

"But how long will you stay for?" Olivia's delicate heart prompted her to ask.

"What do you mean?"

"If you and I become an 'us', and then you walk away, whether it's in a week, a month, or a year, I will not recover." Olivia admitted to him honestly. "You're it for me, Elliot. You've been my best friend for almost a decade and somewhere in that time I've fallen so in love with you that I just can't imagine not seeing you every day. I'm scared to death that if we got involved romantically, the inevitable end of that relationship would also destroy the partnership and friendship that I've come to depend on."

Elliot's heart soared. So she really did care for him. She depended on seeing him every day. He set his hand on her cheek gently and used his thumb to brush away her tears. "And what if I told you that I'd never leave?" He asked, half holding his breath in anticipation of her answer.

Olivia gave him the kind of patient smile that one might give a rather stupid child. "I'm not that easy to spend that much time with Elliot. I'm a work-a-holic and I have a lot of skeletons in my closet. Trust me, El, eventually you'd get tired of me."

"Liv, I have worked with you for stretches of up to seventy-two hours at a time. You know me better than I know myself sometimes. And I'd like to think that I've seen you at your best and at your worst. There is nothing about you that I don't adore, 'Livia, whether it's your mood swings, your passion, or your unbelievably big heart." Elliot promised her. "I say that I won't leave you, Liv, because I can't. As much as it would destroy you, it would destroy me too." Just to truly make his point he kissed her forehead gently.

Olivia closed her eyes and held her breath at his soft touch. It took her breath away that someone so masculine and powerful could be so gentle. He touched her as though she were a glass figurine that might break at any moment, or a wisp of smoke that might blow away. She looked up, letting her deep brown eyes meet Elliot's electric blue ones. Her heart stuttered at the look of pure love and adoration in his eyes. "I love you so much, Elliot Stabler." She told him.

"I love you more Olivia Benson." Elliot told her with a smile. "And I promise you that whatever tough times may come upon us, I will never, ever leave you alone again."

Olivia smiled brilliantly for the first time in she didn't know how long. For the first time in a long time, maybe in her whole life, she felt completely happy. She wrapped her arms securely around Elliot's muscular torso and snuggled her head against his shoulder.

Elliot smiled and kissed Olivia's hair as he returned her loving embrace.

After a minute Olivia looked up into the bright eyes of the man she loved. "Do you think Fin will let us out of here now?" She asked with an almost child-like innocence that made Elliot's already ear splitting grin even wider.

"Maybe if we ask very nicely," he chuckled.

Just then the door opened and, to their surprise, Captain Cragen stood in the doorway looking sternly at them. "Have you two sorted out your issues?" He asked with his characteristic bluntness.

"Yes, Captain."

"Good. I want both of you to go home and get some sleep. And I don't want to see either of you here tomorrow."

"Yes, Captain." Olivia said, walking past him with a wink at Elliot.

Elliot nodded at the Captain and hurried after Olivia. He caught up to her at the elevator and joined her on the ride down.

When they arrived at the ground floor, Olivia cast an uncharacteristically shy glance at Elliot. "Will you come home with me Elliot?" She asked. "I'm terrified that if I let you leave I'm going to wake up and find this was all a dream."

Elliot hugged her to him. "I will do anything to prove to you just how serious I am," he promised.

"Anything?" Olivia asked playfully, looking up at him with a wide smile.

Elliot smiled at the little bit of his partner that was returning. "Within reason," he amended.

Olivia smiled at him again. "Hold me, Elliot. Hold me and don't ever let go."

From the front windows of the 16th precinct, Captain Don Cragen watched one car leave the parking structure. He waited but a second one never followed. He smiled to himself, but it was a bittersweet smile. Olivia was a like a daughter to him and so while he was happy that their unresolved feelings would no longer disturb his team, it was hard to watch her fall in love with someone. Even if it was Elliot Stabler that she fell for.


End file.
